Olivera Has Confidence in His Pitches

After being on the activated from disabled list on May 19th, Manu Olivera has had plenty of rest to recuperate himself for the remainder of the Carolina season. The rest has allowed his arm to feel fresh for the Mudcats to rely on in middle relief situations.

“I mean I’ve been on the DL for a little bit, and that gave me a little time. I had a blister on my middle finger,” Manuel Olivera explained about his injury.

He was sent to the DL on May 7th and finally got back to pitching on May 22nd against the Birmingham Barons. Looking fresh and rested, he was able to get seven batters out without giving up a run. In just 2 1/3 innings pitched, he surrendered only two hits total.

“I mean tonight, I had so much rest and everything felt right, and I was hitting my spots and pitching the pitches in,” the Spanish-born relief pitcher told us last week.

He seemed to be very comfortable setting up his strikeout pitches by placing fastballs in hard-hitting zones. And with his slider and cutter, he was able to get out Birmingham batters at will.

“It all depends, for a righty the two-seam runs away from a righty. The two-seam fastballs and the changeups have got late movement,” he revealed. “To a lefty, I like the slider. That’s more like a strikeout pitch. You usually start them off with fastballs and then pitch the slider.”

He has been able to locate his sliders and cutters in places that are pretty much un-hittable. He understands that all pitches have to be on in order to get players in the crucial middle-to-late innings.

“As a reliever, I mean you have to come in and have everything working. It’s not like you can just come in with one pitch and dominate. Batters are going to see that you are throwing one pitch for a strike and sit on it. It doesn’t matter where you going to throw it because at this level they are going to hit it,” he added.

Olivera loves to establish the fastball and mix in the changeup so that he can use his slider and cutter to get batters out in tough situations.

“Everybody has got a number of pitches where you have your number one, two, three, and four. In different situations you go to your first two pitches. Usually it’s fastball, and then whatever split or slider. It all depends on the pitcher. For me it was fastball, changeup and then a few cutters and sliders,” said the 29-year old.

“You got to build up your confidence. If you feel confident with all of your pitches and hit your spots, then it will take you up. The blister thing, I was kind of all over the place, and I couldn’t find my release point so it was so frustrating in the beginning. It’s coming around.”

(Photos exclusively Copyright © 2007 Nikolaus Johnson Controlled Images)

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